WASHINGTON: Terming the Jaish-e-Mohammad as one of the most dangerous terrorist groups in the world, President George W Bush on Wednesday warned governments, which are "timid in the face of terror", that the US will "act" should they fail. "Some governments will be timid in the face of terror. And make no mistake: If they do not act, America will," Bush said in his first state of the union address to a joint session of Congress. The censure for the Jaish, however, came with a strong word of praise for Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. "Pakistan is now cracking down on terror, and I admire the strong leadership of President Musharraf," he said. Though the word "strong" was not in Bush's prepared text, he added it while reading out the same. The message on America's continuing battle against terrorism came loud and clear. "Our war on terror is well begun, but it is only begun. This campaign may not be finished on our watch... Yet it must be and will be waged on our watch," he said.
"Our military... has put the terror training camps of Afghanistan out of business, yet camps still exist in at least a dozen countries. A terrorist underworld, including groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and Jaish-e-Mohammad, operates in remote jungles and deserts, and hides in the centres of large cities.
NEW DELHI, JANUARY 30: REPORT in Pakistani daily The News has claimed that Pakistan's list of persons it wants India to hand over includes Home Minister L.K. Advani. The report, quoting unnamed sources, claimed that Advani is wanted in a case to assassinate Pakistan's founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah in 1947. The Union Home Ministry described the report as "absurd and frivolous". While Advani was unavailable for comment, ministry officials pointed out that the report hasn't been authenticated by the Pakistan government itself. In fact, the Pakistan Foreign Office issued a statement that I it wouldn't be able to comment on the report before "the facts of the news story have been fully looked into.
Karachi January 31:
While America's freewheeling and open-ended war on terrorism goes on
producing a lot of fog, Pakistanis, having become accustomed to it, are
rediscovering not only their temporarily suspended politics but are
beginning to notice what is really going on around them. Military
confrontation with India continues to be a great distraction. However,
far too much attention is being paid here on how close have the Indians
come to the Americans and whether they can seduce the latter to endorse
their longer-term designs, especially those bearing on Pakistan. This is
what is concentrating the minds of the pro-establishment politicians and
commentators. Others, Perhaps drawing on the plenty of latent
anti-Americanism in Pakistan, have reacted to the latest State of the
Union address of US President George W Bush with near panic.
The US is not only on the march, it is seen as being on the rampage. Its
military presence in Pakistan on a big enough scale --- the precise
number of bases in Pakistan has become irrelevant after their getting
the use of Karachi airport --- is of course psychologically painful to
bear. True, there are so far no protests against it in the press. The
American press stories about how did the US manage to secure Pakistan's
cooperation in the American 'crusade' against terrorism no matter where
have had a great effect. Anyone can here the phrase being used at lunch
time in Karachi's press club: 'Afghanistan is an occupied country'
frequently enough. But each time someone chimes in: 'so are we'. The US
designs in Asia is a subject of absorbing interest among all aware
citizens, though it has not made any intrusion into the political
parties' discourses nor has it been taken up seriously in the press.
Insofar as the immediate preoccupation with the military tensions on the
borders is concerned, there is near unanimity among most analysts that
state Assemblies polls in India and the outcome of the US facilitation
between the two South Asian nuclear powers are sure to enable the two to
both thin out (first) before too long and begin some kind of a dialogue.
That is expected to be in the second half of February. Not that dangers
of brinkmanship can be ignored. But a robust kind of opinion --- based
on a belief in the omnipotence of American diplomacy --- pervades the
Pakistani commentators. Only a few hardline commentators, persons, like
Shirin Mazari, who is the Director General of the Institute of Strategic
Studies, believe that there might be a deeper anti-Pakistan conspiracy
in the making among the US, Israel, and India at Pakistan's unspecified
expense. Others mostly think that for the Americans the most important
thing is to go on 'managing' the two unfriendly states in South Asia and
not to become a partisan on India's behalf. They have had plenty of such
experience.
The operative part of this last assessment is that the US leadership of
South Asia can become a great launching pad for Americans throughout the
Asia-Pacific region, to begin with. The assumptions are two: one that
the Americans are likely to succeed in recruiting the active cooperation
of both New Delhi and Islamabad in promoting the New Order Mr. Bush is
creating in Asia --- that will later sweep over the rest of the non or
less resisting world. American physical presence in Kyrghistan,
Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and of course Afghanistan --- and now the
Philippines, with intimations of extending the war to North Korea, Iran
and Iraq --- given the earlier military presence in Asia is sure to
result in winning new and influencing old friends in Asia, especially in
the former Soviet republics.
It is hard to ignore the old adage that wherever soldiers reach, you
should soon expect businessmen of that nation. Behind the GIs come
corporate America's executives, especially of the Seven Sisters. When
people talk of oil and gas, they ought not to forget two other groups:
the war industries and the fund managers, George Soroses and high tech
services industries. Most Asian countries are now, as a result of WTO
and adoption of neoclassicist economic management paradigm, ready to
receive surplus American capital for exploiting their mineral and other
resources and yielding income-bearing assets. Of what use will be
American leadership role, if American economy does not pick up as a
result of heavy war expenditures and if American businessmen do not find
new markets for their capital hoards. After all American banks also need
new customers and to give bigger credits to old and tried customers.
BM Kutty, the Information Secretary of National Workers Party --- a new
name for the old leftist NAP --- has called the near silence over the
looming threat of the US getting away with its neo-colonialism without
much opposition from democratic forces in India --- and Pakistan. Such
forces in Pakistan were never absent or silent but were always (since
1954) weak, vulnerable and prone to being suppressed. He noted that
protesters in America are already active ahead of World Development
Forum's meeting in New York; that does credit to the US itself. In other
developed countries too the WTO, IMF and World Bank as well as those of
G7 meetings occasioned big protests. Even in Malaysia and Thailand there
were protests, underpinned by NGOs from the west. But, he castigated
that, democrats and socialists in India and this country are silently
watching the brutal advance of Anglo-American capital in Asia in
silence. Why?
Significantly, the one passage from the famous Kumarakom Musings
which the prime minister reproduced in his New Year eve article was
the one on his Kashmir policy: "In our search for a lasting solution
to the Kashmir problem, both in its external and internal dimensions,
we shall not traverse solely on the beaten track of the past.
Rather, we shall be bold and innovative designers of a future
architecture of peace and prosperity for the entire South Asian
region."
For different reasons, his initiatives on both dimensions last year
came to a naught. Not a few feel that the domestic challenge has
suffered gravely due to neglect or, when it managed to receive
attention, from the inept and contradictory policies pursued by
various actors in the play. This is by no means a recent phenomenon.
It existed even in Jawaharlal Nehru's time as the memories of some of
the inter-meddlers of the time revealed. The time has now come when
the curtain must be brought down on this endless play. To use a
cliché, the Centre must get its act together.
It must devise a coherent policy after full deliberation and
implement it with a sense of purpose and direction. It must also
reckon realistically with the prospect of repeated setbacks, not a
few caused by persons within the establishment.
The stalemate in Indo-Pak relations is no reason for neglecting
problems at home. The prime minister cannot afford to lose time in
translating his vision into policy. Jammu and Kashmir is due to go to
the polls before October. Will it be another farce, another one-horse
race like the one in 1996, staged to ensure the return to power of
Farooq Abdullah?
One of the purposes of the K.C. Pant mission was to initiate parleys
with all sections of the people of the state in order to pave the way
for a meaningful poll. To no one's surprise, he failed.
In a singularly imaginative move, Wajahat Habibullah was recently
appointed as interlocutor. A senior civil servant of unimpeachable
integrity, he has the rare qualities, besides, of genuine sympathy
for the people and a caring attitude which won him their confidence
when he served in the state. But he is confronted with obstacles he
can well do without.
Like it or not, the All-Party Hurriyat Conference is a prime player,
if not the prime one. Its three-man team, which visited Delhi early
this month, conveyed a message by its very composition - Syed Ali
Shah Geelani, Abdul Ghani Lone and Yaseen Malik. For the last two
years, the APHC has been hamstrung by a rift between the first two.
They had come for talks in Delhi. Precisely then the security forces
cracked down on their lieutenants in Srinagar. They went back home.
It is a notorious fact that the PMO and the Union home ministry spoke
in different voices during the short-lived ceasefire declared by the
Hizbul Mujahideen in July 2000. No less notorious is the fact that in
the past, the intelligence agencies (central and state) and the
security forces have intervened actively to sabotage promising
political initiatives by the Centre.
The Hizb's deputy supreme commander, Masood, who had represented it
in the talks with the central team on August 3, 2000, was arrested in
the night of July 24-25, 2001, and killed the next evening. The
authorities claim it was an "encounter". Popular belief attributes
the deed to the dreaded Special Operations Group of the state police.
In the preceding months, he had acquired note as a columnist in the
respected Srinagar weekly Chattan. In an article written shortly
before he was killed, he lamented that "criminalisation is creeping
into Kashmiri society and it is now incumbent on us to go for a
peaceful and durable solution to this (Kashmir) problem".
Whose interests were served by his death? In warning against
criminalisation and pleading for a peaceful solution, Masood did not
stand alone. The APHC's leaders have been speaking in the same vein.
Two years ago, on January 17, 2000, the then acting chairman of the
APHC, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, warned that foreign elements "will
increase and we cannot resist it as frustration among the youth is on
the rise. Militancy is taking a new shape which will be beyond any
control now". He has been a consistent advocate of a dialogue with
the Centre.
The present chairman, Abdul Ghani Bhat, made an important statement
on January 19. "The boys with the gun have done their duty. They have
done the job by highlighting the movement. Now, it is for the
politicians to capitalise on it." More to the point, "he who talks in
terms of 'a religious issue', perhaps forgets that if and when the
right of self-determination is granted to the people of the state, it
will be exercised by each one of us; irrespective of caste, creed,
colour and religion."
Nothing will invest the assembly polls with greater meaning than the
APHC's participation in them; a consummation for which parleys are an
indispensable preliminary. This brings us to a familiar track.
Elections are not an end in themselves. The urgent need is the
restoration of civil society in the state, a task for which the
Farooq Abdullah regime has revealed itself to be utterly unequipped
and incompetent. Why not make an effort in that direction, making a
dialogue with the APHC and the holding of the oft-promised free and
fair elections to the state assembly in the wider battle for a
peaceful, civil society.
Mehbooba Mufti made a telling point in a TV debate on January 20;
that tall promises made in election campaigns in Kashmir - such as
the reopening of the Srinagar-Rawalpindi road; solution to the
Kashmir problem; or restoration of the state's autonomy - result in
popular disillusionment and rob the poll process of integrity and
meaning. Why not address, instead, the immediate needs of the people
in education, health, employment, civil liberties and protection
against the arbitrary exercise of power? Why not create a caring,
responsive administration?
This does not imply that urgent political issues should be forgotten.
The alienation of the people will not be assuaged by any economic
relief whatsoever. It is too deep. Their political grievances,
aspirations and trauma of remembered wrongs must be addressed with
equal earnestness. Even if 'cross-border terrorism' is ended, the
alienation will survive. The people are crying - their self-respect
has been hurt by arbitrary arrests, searches and crackdowns.
The APHC ought to realise that the days of hartals and bandhs are
over. They do not affect the morale of the authorities; but only
disrupt the daily lives of the people. It would do better, instead,
to dispel any impression of reliance on militancy, rather than mass
support, concentrate on democratic, peaceful agitation and on
redressal of grievances in matters of direct and immediate concern to
the citizens. This ought to be done regardless of the result of any
talks with the Centre or a decision on contesting the elections.
It is, in turn, the Centre's duty to exert itself towards the
creation of a peaceful atmosphere by checking violations of human
rights, permitting peaceful protests and encouraging free
communication between the people. Officially sponsored seminars,
whether conducted openly or sub-rosa through intelligence agencies,
bring nothing but discredit to the enthusiastic participants who
fancy themselves as performers in track II diplomacy. All that the
State needs to do is to cease to intrude and obstruct.
NGOs in India should interact with NGOs in the state like the J&K
Freedom of Civil Society Organisation (JKFSO). This umbrella group of
17 NGOs was set up in June 2000 to campaign on women's rights,
environment, trade unions, corruption and human rights. Its convenor
is a noted lawyer and activist, Pervez Imroz, founder of the
Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons. JKFSO has interacted
with other NGOs in the country. But how many have taken interest in
the APDP or, the travails of the people of the Valley?
There is now a new atmosphere in an altered situation. The chairman
of the Kashmir Committee, set up by Pervez Musharraf, Sardar Abdul
Qayyum, former PM of PoK and a critic of armed militancy, proposed in
an interview on January 7 that Kashmiris on both sides of the LoC
should be given an opportunity to sit together and deliberate. This
can be done in Delhi, to begin with.
But all of this can only be part of a comprehensive policy. The prime
minister must lose no time in formulating one.
Eminent Supreme Court lawyer Rajeev Dhavan says the Supreme Court status quo applies to the entire 67-acre land in Ayodhya, and that Vajpayee cannot assume different avatars while dealing with different problems, in an interview with Shamya Dasgupta
New Delhi, January 29
Is the status quo announced by the Supreme Court applicable to the
entire 67 acres of land at the Babri Masjid site, or is it limited
only to the disputed 2.77 acres?
On record I can say that the order should be applicable to the entire
area.
Under the Acquisition of Certain Areas Act, 1993, what are the legal
implications?
The legal question here is an irrelevant question. The issue has now
been referred to the law minister. That is nothing but a political
trick and it shows the lack of statesmanship of the current
government. If the matter could have been resolved so simply by the
law minister, then it would have been resolved ages ago and wouldn't
have continued for so long.
But now the law minister has come into the picture
How do they expect the law minister to resolve it, especially a law
minister like Arun Jaitley, who is well known for his orthodox views?
The message that comes through from this is that the Vajpayee
government wants to accept, and make the country accept, the Vishwa
Hindu Parishad (VHP) point of view. It is a matter of perception as
to whether it was the Ram Janmabhoomi or not, but fact also is that
if the Supreme Court has declined the reference, the law minister can
do nothing to resolve it.
A clause in the Act lays down that the land can be handed over only
to organisations that have come into being after the Act was passed.
In that case, the VHP-controlled Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas (RJN) doesn't
qualify, does it?
No. It can be handed over to anyone. I have the statutes with me, and
I have argued this issue in the past also. If the Central government
is the legal trustee for the entire land, then, according to the
Supreme Court, it can be passed on to anyone. It doesn't make a
difference if the organisation comes into being afterwards or before.
If that were the case, then what is stopping the VHP from creating
yet another group specifically to take care of this clause in the Act?
Therefore the onus now shifts to the prime minister for all practical
purposes?
The Central government therefore assumes the role of the power
simplicitor. Broadly speaking, without getting into the
nitty-gritties of the statutes, I would say that although the
schedules of the Act describes the certain areas, it doesn't go deep
enough for this answer. What our prime minister has to do now is that
he has to take a stance. One thing that is clear in my mind though,
is that Vajpayee can't talk secularism with Pakistan, and communalism
with Uttar Pradesh (UP). He can't assume a secular stance with
respect to Kashmir, and then preach communalism to the people of UP.
And what he is doing right now is clearly hypocritical. Political
tricks are fine, but he can't assume such clearly contradictory
stances on two issues moving simultaneously.
The other issue of course is the problem of encirclement. The Babri
Masjid area is right in the middle of the entire area, and therefore,
if the rest of the land is given to the VHP, the Masjid will become
encircled.
That's the whole point! The whole area needs to be kept free. The
government has to take possession of the whole area and treat it
properly. If the government claims that its moves are in the interest
of peace and harmony in the area, then all its actions should be in
the interests of peace and harmony.
LAHORE, Pakistan, Jan. 29 -- Pakistan has decided not to press
criminal charges against two of its nuclear scientists whose reported
contacts with Osama bin Laden stirred fears of nuclear terrorism,
according to officials and a lawyer involved in the case.
Although Pakistani authorities concluded the scientists violated a
secrecy oath during trips into Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, the
government decided they would not have been able to give away
information necessary to build a bomb. A trial, officials said, would
generate further international embarrassment and risk disclosure of
Pakistan's nuclear secrets.
"So far everything that relates to our nuclear program is a state
secret," said a senior Pakistani official, who spoke on condition of
anonymity. "By talking to Osama and his folks in Afghanistan, the two
scientists broke their oath to secrecy, yet we were forced to ignore
their action in the best interest of the nation."
The scientists, Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood and Abdul Majid, will
remain under government control as part of a deal worked out for
their release from strict detention. They are currently living in a
safe house in the capital, Islamabad, and restricted in their travels
and communications. Mahmood's family, which went to court seeking his
release following his arrest last fall, agreed to the arrangement and
on Monday withdrew a legal complaint filed here in Lahore, the
family's home town.
"There was a settlement. It was a mutual understanding between him
and the government," said the family's attorney, Mohammed Ismaeel
Qureshy. "They are not prisoners. What was communicated to me was
they were under protective custody for their own protection."
Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, made the decision to
forgo prosecution, sources said. But his government assured U.S.
officials that they would have access to the scientists for further
questioning if requested. U.S. officials have been particularly
concerned about the case and participated in previous interrogations.
The case was a major subject of a trip to Pakistan by CIA Director
George J. Tenet last fall.
In Washington, the CIA said it had no comment on the Pakistani decision.
Mahmood and Majid were detained in October after intelligence reports
indicated they might have been helping bin Laden's al Qaeda network
obtain a nuclear weapon.
The two scientists, who had just returned from the Taliban stronghold
of Kandahar, said they had traveled to Afghanistan only for
charitable work. Under questioning, they acknowledged meeting bin
Laden and providing detailed answers to his questions about weapons
of mass destruction, according to government officials. But they
insisted they discussed only their academic knowledge about the
enrichment of nuclear material and at no point shared Pakistani
nuclear secrets with bin Laden or his lieutenants, the sources said.
Pakistani authorities concluded that the scientists could not have
disclosed vital information because they were not involved in the
weapons side of the nuclear program. Mahmood, who at one time held
top positions at three of Pakistan's most important nuclear
facilities, and Majid, a top engineer, left government service in
1999.
Mahmood, like many Pakistani officials before Sept. 11, was a Taliban
supporter, but he was forced out after he spoke against signing a
nuclear test ban treaty and in favor of helping other Muslim
countries with their nuclear programs.
Qureshy, the family attorney, denied that Mahmood met with bin Laden
or helped al Qaeda develop nuclear weaponry. "It is not true," he
said. "He had no communication with Osama. He headed a philanthropic
organization. They said they wanted to help the people of Kabul and
Afghanistan."
Government sources disclosed this week that Mahmood and Majid told
investigators that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency
(ISI) had sanctioned their charity activities and meetings with the
Taliban leader, Mohammad Omar. Until Sept. 11, the ISI had been a
patron of the Taliban.
Whether the scientists' contention was true or not, Pakistani
authorities clearly did not want such issues aired through a court
proceeding, even one kept closed to the public. "The trial of these
scientists, particularly at this juncture, would have attracted
tremendous international media attention," said a senior Pakistani
official in explaining the decision not to file charges.
As recently as last month, officials were suggesting strongly that
they planned to charge the scientists. Mahmood and Majid were
released in mid-December to celebrate with their families the Muslim
festival of Eid al-Fitr, the holiday that ends Ramadan, even as
government authorities were proposing to Musharraf that they be
prosecuted for violating the nation's official secrets act. If
charged and convicted, they could have received seven-year prison
terms. Officials said at the time that the scientists' Eid furlough
would be temporary and that the investigation was continuing.
Little is more precious to Pakistan's government than the secrecy of
its nuclear program. Pakistan first tested underground nuclear
devices in 1998, shortly after its arch-rival India conducted a test.
The fact that both countries have nuclear weapons capability has made
the subcontinent a flash point, particularly during the recent
tension over the disputed region of Kashmir and a terrorist attack on
the Indian Parliament in New Delhi.
Analysts have said they believe Pakistan has enough nuclear material
to assemble 30 to 40 warheads, and it has test-fired
intermediate-range missiles that could be used to launch them.
However, officials and specialists said Pakistan keeps its warheads
and missiles stored separately and has not moved to "mate" them with
an eye toward using them during the current crisis.
Khan reported from Karachi, Pakistan.
(c) 2002 The Washington Post Company
The writer is a well-known journalist and freelance columnist
Although a nuclear weapons and missiles race is still intensifying
between Pakistan and India, as shown by the clamour to give a tit for
tat reply to the Agni test on Friday (January 25), President and
Chief Executive is said to be reluctant to do so. Instead, he has
suggested a series of treaties to India with a view to radically
improve the relations between the two nuclear neighbours in the
security field. He thinks the two should sign a No War pact. And
insofar as nuclear weapons are concerned, Pakistan would like to go
much further than India's mere no-first-use treaty idea. It is
instead proposing the denuclearisation of South Asia by working out a
phased but simultaneous nuclear disarmament by both India and
Pakistan. There is however nothing new in either Indian thinking or
in the Pakistani response. Both know the other will reject the idea;
the aim is to score points. The two have gone round this mulberry
bush many times since 1980s while cynically proliferating atomic
weaponry.
Several near war tensions and the quasi war of Kargil, not to mention
the current Crisis, all in a space of 15 years, should occasion
unease about the future. Islamabad needs to do a deeper and realistic
thinking on the nukes as the ultimate guarantee of Pakistan's
national security. The reason is that both India and Pakistan now
have had a vicarious experience of a nuclear war in real life South
Asian conditions after Kargil's half war. In point of fact, India is
threatening an invasion with conventional weapons, if Pakistan went
on doing what it says is doing in Kashmir, while supporting the Jihad
there. Pakistan's realpolitik reply is: 'go ahead, try; we will nuke
you'. Arguably, India stayed deterred but just --- until December 13
incident took place in New Delhi. India, acting on its new doctrine
--- that 'nuclear weapons deter only nuclear weapons and a
conventional war is possible between India and Pakistan' --- has
massed the bulk of its Army on the borders with Pakistan in an attack
mode. Pakistan has mobilised likewise and both feel to be in a state
of war in which shooting is being held up.
Some analysts think that thanks to the mistrust generated by the
nuclear weapons what might be at stake is a true 'necessity' by both
sides to make a pre-emptive nuclear strike - the only thing that is
logical in the circumstances - if either can get away with it. That a
shooting war has not happened is due more to the heavy US pressures
than to the good sense of either.
Psychologically, the current phase has been a real war situation;
even at this writing a war can be set off through an accident's
escalation or miscalculation. No doubt the generals on both sides
have gone through all the possibilities; in other words, the Indian
General Staff has either taken the possibility of Pakistan's
pre-emptive nuclear strike in their stride and still think that the
war made some sense or means to nuke Pakistan first in a massive way.
We in Pakistan have to tarry here and think deep. How could the
Indian generals go as far as they have done, taking the obvious risks
of (a) an all out war breaking out; (b) Pakistan crossing the
threshold in the easily possible war and nuking a few targets in
India. How could the Indian generals take these two initial risks?
No great expertise is needed to see the reason why. Since they
possess, and the world knows, a far bigger arsenal of nuclear weapons
- which must do its own deterring, if Pakistan's smaller stockpile
can be said to do any deterring - their calculation is obvious: In
view of the fact that India can absorb Pakistan's first strike and
still give a bigger riposte in kind - the second strike capability -
no Pakistani commander can afford to take out two or three Indian
cities, knowing that the India's counterpunch can wipe out all major
urban-industrial centres in Pakistan. Or else they think that their
massive pre-emptive strike can cripple the deterrent. Former Foreign
Minister Agha Shahi's assessment, published by a contemporary tallies
with the former view, though he has not drawn any conclusion from it
vis-a-vis the efficacy or utility of nuclear armaments.
Needless to say no one has any defence against a nuclear attack; the
result is sure destruction of a profound kind. It just kills men,
women and children, burn the earth, destroy both the flora and fauna,
poison the air and water resources in the target area and beyond.
Above all, it maims the generation to come. That sort of death and
destruction on either side is totally unacceptable. When in history
did a man want his enemy's grand children to be born diseased and
disabled? Having calculated all that, India has pressed the threat of
a conventional war that can graduate into a nuclear war while toying
with the idea of a pre-emptive nuclear strike. The kind of concern
the BJP regime has of humanity and future of South Asian people has
been brought in sharp relief by what it is threatening to do. At
least Pakistan's military regime has shown a distaste for war for
whatever reason. Pakistan acknowledged it when it authoritatively
declared that Pakistan was too responsible a country to use nuclear
weapons - at the height of the Crisis. That underlines the need for a
more purposeful review of the policy concerning nuclear weapons.
Ever since 1990 when in his ebullience the Pakistani COAS of the day
gave on a newer (Jihadi) orientation to the Kashmir policy in the
belief that Pakistan's (then) putative nuclear capability was already
deterring India. Didn't the threat spelled out by Dr Qadeer Khan stop
General Sunderji in his tracks during Operation Brasstacks? Ergo we
can safely go on doing what we like in Kashmir and India can do
nothing except to writhe in pain. Indians took some beating before
realising that they too can play at the same game. Now, they have
challenged Pakistan to a war and do its worst. Realising what nuclear
weapons can do whether on Indian soil or Pakistan's, the final
Pakistani choice, 'peace' needs to be praised for its sanity and
commonsense.
The right of first strike gives absolutely no advantage to Pakistan
if the enemy possesses a second strike capability. It is hard to
believe that Pakistan possesses such an overwhelming advantage that
its first massive strike can cripple all of India and for a
generation at least.
Otherwise it is pointless. Look closely. In real life conditions,
Pakistan's vaunted nuclear deterrent has proved to be a dud. Earlier
too, it did not at all deter Bush from forcing General Pervez
Musharraf to choose his siderather than go back to the stone age; the
darned thing, along with the Kashmir policy - already in tatters
after this January 12 - needed to be saved rather than its saving its
owners. One does not wish to go on to the larger questioning of the
doctrine of deterrence itself, although there is temptation to do so.
But the question for Pakistanis is insistent: what has its vaunted
nuclear deterrent done for it? Is it worth a tinker's cuss?
Pakistanis need to do deeper thinking after their vicarious
experience of war between two competing nuclear powers. Nuclear
arsenals have been of no use whatever vis-a-vis India or in pursuit
of a basically militaristic Kashmir policy to them. On the contrary,
their very presence has been destabilising. Look at Indo-Pakistan
relations either since 1980s or after May '98. There has been not a
day of real normalcy.
So long as nuclear weapons exist in Pakistan's armouries, no Indian
Army Chief can trust that Pakistanis will not, in a fit of anger,
nuke them. And vice versa. The mistrust that subsists between India
and Pakistan has been magnified by atomic weapons' existence on
either side. No positive policy of friendship is compatible with
keeping nuclear weapons aimed at - whom? The enemy, who else! What
kind of friendship can ever be possible while these evil weapons sit
in the respective armouries?
In short, insofar as Pakistan is concerned, - and one is not
concerned with India, because there must be some Indians out there to
use their own commonsense - nuclear weapons have failed to deter
either the US (that wanted us to change our basic foreign policies
and succeeded) or India (which is the designated enemy but to which
we had to assure that we will not nuke it). To repeat, the Pakistani
Bomb has been of no use in sustaining Pakistan's 25-year-old Afghan
policy or 12-year-old newer orientation of the Kashmir policy; both
had to be changed under external pressure despite the expensive
deterrent. It is a painful lesson. But we had better learn it.
A profound change in policy stances is therefore urgent. It is
possible that some Smart Alec will argue that the recent changes were
due to American power; we cannot disobey it. Therefore recent changes
do not disprove their old policies; we have bought American support.
Indians were however smarter; they were able to sell their democracy
to the Americans as something more valuable. At any rate, America has
swallowed the current Indian stance on Kashmir, hook, line and
sinker. No matter what the Americans say or do, we need to make
policies based onPakistanis inherent economic and political strength
- and not on atomic weapons that proved to be useless. We had better
not play the big power. Nor should we seek to be hewers of wood and
drawers of water for the US. Let us be concerned only with the
well-being and welfare of Pakistan's 140 million persons. As for the
ties with the US, we should wake up. Convergences between India and
the US are strategic in nature; the US wants to turn India into a
counterweight for China in the Asian balance of power. Pakistan is,
in terms of great power politics, a second rank developing country -
and it is already hooked thanks to its need for periodical bailouts.
So, we have to live on the periphery of a strategic partnership
between the US and India for as long as can be seen today.
We need to have an India policy of our own. Nuclear weapons stand in
the way of a productive normalisation of relations and economic
cooperation. Kashmir policy of the future should have no link with
military strength, India's or ours. So why should we go on carrying
the useless and expensive burden of a nuclear deterrent that does not
deter those whom we want to be deterred. If we really believe in a
denuclearised South Asia, we had better start building a nuclear
weapons free area here ourselves - Pakistan first. What India does,
as an adjunct of American supremacy in Asia, is Indians' business. No
matter what it says or does, we should start acting on what we say we
believe in. The same goes for a No War Pact. If India hedges or puts
conditions, ignore it. We enforce our peace policy on India. Let us
join 182 other non-nuclear states and gain high the moral ground as
Nelson Mandela did. Can we be more insecure than we are today?
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